This invention relates to the field of computer systems. More particularly, a system and methods are provided for associating individual computer system users with specific data centers via sticky routing.
Many online services are supported by multiple operations centers, each one encompassing the hardware and software resources necessary to support the service. Typically, each user connection or request submitted to such a service is routed to an operations center chosen because it is the closest to the user (or the entity routing the request), because it is the least congested, because doing so will help distribute the service's load, or because it satisfies some other criteria.
However, this means that sequential service requests from one user device, or requests from different devices operated by the same user, may be routed to different sites. For example, if the user changes a particular data value during a connection with a first operations center, and a subsequent request regarding that data is routed to a second, different, operations center (e.g., to view the updated data), the data displayed by the second data center may not reflect the change. This may affect the user's experience and/or confidence in the service.